Clockwork Bluebirds
by AlwaysEatTheRude21
Summary: They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but when Eva Potter finds a photo of her mother, a man and a name of a town, all she is left with is trying to find the truth hidden in the lies. On the hunt for her father, Eva finds herself spiraling down into the dark world of MC's and cartels, where nothing and no one are quite what they seem. Nestor/Fem!Harry Slight Angel/Fem!Harry
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE:**

**Búho**

* * *

**Eva Potter's P.O.V**

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Eva Potter was inclined to agree, if only she could add that they also spawned a thousand and one more questions. At sixteen, barely healed from the greatest war to wreak bloodshed on her kind, she was, against the odds, alive. Alive and grieving. Now that it was over, now that Voldemort was gone and dead and dust, just as the rubble was settling and Eva thought, perhaps naively, that she could begin to rebuild, move on, perhaps create a life for herself outside of the night of the 31st October all those years ago, she found a photo.

Just a photo.

She had not meant to find it. She had not searched for it. She had not known it had even existed. One moment, she was blissfully unaware of its existence and the next, in what felt like a blink, it was in her hand and her whole life had shifted right from under her feet. Moving into Godric's Hollow after the war, though the house needed a bit of tender love and care, and more than a pinch of renovation, Eva had thought she was creating a home. Something she had never had before.

And it had felt right. This was where her story began. This was where everything went wrong. This was one of the only things she had left of her mother and father, Lily and James Potter, and, seeing it rundown, dilapidated, cast to ruin, Voldemort's memory still lingering, Eva thought it would be right to see the house turned home once more. In a way, she knew, it was her way of saying goodbye to the war. Goodbye to her mother and father. Goodbye to the pain of scars, mental and physical, beginning to knot in gnarled flesh.

Not forgotten. Never forgotten. But laid to rest.

And then she found the safety box stashed in the very back of her mother's dresser, and it was locked, and, well, Eva had never been one to leave a mystery untouched. Eva Potter, sixteen, war hero, The Girl Who Lived, orphan- _lie_. All of it. Lies. And it was all because of that fucking photo. She should have just thrown the dresser out. She should have burnt Godric's Hollow to the ground. She should have never opened that box and-…

But she did. Eva opened the safety box with a few spells, her mother had been good at warding, and she found a photo. It was a small. Four by six. Glossy paper. Curled in the corners. Nothing special. Just a photo. _A picture speaks a thousand words. _And, Eva thought, unlike words, they couldn't lie.

Her mother, Lily, stared at her from the fading coloured ink. More than once, Eva found herself running her thumb gently over her face, back and forth, over and over, almost as if she wanted to wipe her from existence or imprint her very face on the pad of her finger. She looked tired. Haggard. Laying on a hospital bed. Her red hair was ratty, tangled, as if she had been tossing and turning. There were dark circles underneath her green eyes, blackened bruises that spoke of sleepless nights and exhaustion. Her lips were swollen, bitten red from clenched teeth trying to hold back shouts and grunts. Her green eyes were tinged red from tears, tears Eva could still see leaving a pale track down her soft cheeks.

_Eva had never seen her look so happy. _

Lily was smiling. Joyful. Sunbeams radiating from her skin. Cheeks and nose flushed hotly. Teeth white and proud between her rosy lips. Freckles looking stark and playful against her pale skin. Merlin, she looked so fucking happy, so alive, that looking at her face twisted something awful in Eva's heart. And by her side was a man.

_A man Eva had never seen before. _

He was tall. Dark. He looked to be the type of man mama's warn their little girls about. He was dressed like a warning, like a mamba with their sleek black scales, heralding danger, in a leather jacket of some kind, arms missing… A biker's kutte. Yes. A big, mean looking biker and little red riding hood. A modern day fairy-tale. Yet, he, this strange man, was smiling up at her from paper too, just as brightly, and there's a warmth there, right there in the curl of lip, flash of toothy grin surround by tanned skin and scruffy beard that overshadows the sheer bite of his presence. And, in his arms, wrapped in a thin pink cotton blanket, red faced and squealing, is Eva. Fresh, new-born Eva.

_Eva had his colouring. All part from the eyes. Those were her mothers. _

The three of them, in this tiny photo, were huddled on the hospital bed, staring right at the camera, pressed in tightly, and Eve felt, staring down with shaking hands, that her world was a snow globe which some over enthusiastic toddler had taken into their grubby hands and violently shook. Why?

Because that was _her_ olive skin. That was _her _unruly black hair. Those were_ her_ dimples. Those were _her _cheekbones. And that man… That wasn't James Potter. On the back, in blue biro, splotchy in patches where the pen was obviously drying out, bleached pale with age, was a simple note, scrawled in her mother's hand.

_Familia, donde la vida comienza y el amor nunca termina._

_Padre, madre, hija._

_Que todos seamos felices, amados y llenos de risas._

_Santo Padre, California, Estados Unidos._

_31 de julio de 2001._

It took Eva a week to translate it. In fact, it took her a week to look at the photo again after she had hurriedly crammed it back into the safety box, locked the bloody thing, and hurled it back into the dresser. Back into the dark. Back and away. Nevertheless, as the days passed, as Eva tried to busy her hands and mind with work around the house, retiling the kitchen, fitting the pipes for the shower, sanding the floorboards, she had that word drifting in and out her mind. Again and again. Around and around. Water sifting through a drain. The tap of a raindrop.

_Padre. Padre. Padre. _

Eva doesn't speak Spanish, and funnily enough, she never thought her mother spoke it either, and yet… Terribly, she thinks she knows what that word means. Shit, everybody knows what fucking padre means. And it haunts her. Lurking, always, right over her shoulder. She couldn't shake it off.

She couldn't forget. She couldn't dream it off, or work it from her system, or run from it. It was there now, leaching, stuck. Words, Eva found, were a lot like ticks. They hid in innocuous places, long grasses of mundane conversation, but they could latch on to your feelings, get bloated, heavy, swollen and fat, draining you for all your worth, and the only way to stop the bleed out was to face the fucking thing head on, to pinch the word by it's tiny head and yank it off.

After the third night of no sleep at the tail end of the week, Eva did just that. She broke and found the little tin box in the dead of the night, opened it, pulled out the photo, and with a swish of her wand, began to translate it. In truth, halfway through, she wavered, stopped. She was not used to that. This caution. This hesitancy. Eva's sure. She's bull-headed. Stubborn. A Gryffindor through and through.

Yet, this little photo, five small lines of hastily scribbled text from her long dead mother, and she was back to being that bruised, hungry, scared little girl locked in a damp cupboard. That Eva didn't ask questions in fear she would be hit. That Eva didn't look up in fear of a being locked away. That Eva didn't question her place in fear of going another day without a meal. And she hated it. Loathed it. She wasn't that little girl anymore, that orphan with no power, no voice, and a photo, one word, shouldn't scare her.

_But it does. _

Still, she carried on, she translated it. She bit the bullet and with a final sweep of her wand, the truth was right there, staring at her dead on, bright and whistling like a freight train heading right at her.

Family, where life begins and love never ends.

Father, mother, daughter.

May we all be happy, loved and full of laughter.

Santo Padre, California, America.

July 31st 2001.

And the snow globe shattered and nothing, _nothing,_ would ever be the same again. That was her birthday. That was her mother, alright. Her handwriting too. That was Eva, no doubt about it, fresh and new to the world. That man, however, was _not_ James Potter. It was a stranger. A dark, leather clad, stranger who looked too much like her and padre-

She trashed the safety box. Desperate. Needy. Confused. She raided it, looking for more… Answers? Questions? Photos? Eva didn't know what she had been looking for, a denial or consolidation, she didn't know, but she had been looking for something. She found nothing in the safety box. Some bills. A tatty ribbon. An empty envelope. _Nothing. _

That is, of course, until Eva, as she was prone to do, lost her grip on her straining temper and pitched the damned box across the room, watching with satisfaction as it smashed into the wall, denting, the bottom panel slipping out, opening up to a hidden compartment at the bottom. Then, and only then, did Eva find the treasure trove. Or pit. Something deep and dark and full of secret things she went tumbling headfirst into.

The first thing she found was a birth certificate, published a whole two months before the very same one in the folder downstairs. _Her birth certificate. _Yet, like the photo, it was _wrong. _Lily's name was there, signed away crisply at the bottom strip with a fancy flourish. Yet, that's where the similarities stopped. She was Eva Potter. The Girl Who Lived. Undesirable N.1. She was _not _this Eva Losa. She was_ not _born in Santo Padre. And there, right there, next to her mother's signature, right where the father should sign was a man she had _never _heard of before.

_Obispo Losa. _

It only got worse. There were more photo's. More trinkets. Lily pregnant, smiling, the mans hand on her swollen stomach as he hugged her from behind. The man stripped off from his jacket, painting a wall a bright cheery yellow. A nursery. Lily sleeping on his shoulder. The man's back to the camera as he barbecued. James was in a few, smiling. Sirius and Remus too. _Friendly. _There were badges with his name on, this Obispo Losa, medals, military, one from Iraq and one from Pelican Bay. There was a baby hat, old, never worn, an odd almost Aztec face to it, a white patch with the word Mayan embroidered across the brow.

There was an adoption certificate right at the bottom of the pile. Short. Prim. The paper was old. Crinkled. There was a strange water stain over the corner and, with a lump in her throat, Eva thought they looked like tear drops. And there it was, that's where she founds James Potter's signature, not on her birth certificate, not where it should be on the father's dotted fucking line, but here, across the paternal adoption section. _Adopted. _And there it was, the name she is used to, Eva Losa now Eva Potter and it's this, this tiny piece of paper, clinical, cold, that broke her in a way Eva never thought she could be broken.

_Her life had been a lie. _

That night she drank three bottles of Firewhiskey, smoked her way through a twenty pack of cigarettes, binged on three family size cheesecakes and, evidently, vomited all over the kitchen sink and passed out in the bathtub, fully clothed and stinking of booze, smoke and caramel. Given, it was not her proudest moment, nor one she could fully remember, but given the circumstances, Eva thought her dramatics could be forgiven. It was, after all, not everyday you discover you are not who you had always thought you had been, and those you had cared about, loved, who were long gone and buried, who could not answer a damned thing, had known all along.

The next morning, hungover like an Irishman after Saint Patricks day, Eva did what she did best. She pretended nothing had changed. Adopted or not, James Potter _was_ her dad. It was _his _name she carried. He had loved her. He had died for her. This… Obispo Losa was nothing more than a sperm donor. A father-shaped shadow looming over her history. He was nothing.

_Nothing. _

At least, that was what she adamantly told herself when his shadow would blacken her mind. Nevertheless, he was not nothing, was he? He was her fath-… Fuck, there was so many questions and no answers, everybody was bloody dead, and all over again, Eva felt like that pathetic, skinny, knobbly kneed kid in a cupboard begging for her parents. Aching. Alone. Still, she told no one. She didn't think she could. The prophecy, the war, everything, it all depended on her being a Potter and, well, here she stood decidedly _not_.

Eva felt like she had tricked them all. Lied. She felt the blood on her hands, sticky and warm, so much blood, innocents who had died following a Potter, a _real _Potter, not a two-bit fraud, and she clammed up. She distanced herself. She smiled and nodded and played her part, but slowly but surely, she locked herself away. Of course, by the two-month mark of her self-imposed exile, Hermione was done dealing with her reclusive shit.

Hermione hounded her, despite how many floo calls Eva repeatedly doused. Letter after letter drifted in with the flutter of owl wings into Eva's kitchen, and she burnt them all without a second glance. The Howlers came quickly after that, as swiftly incinerated as the letters. Then, after four days of peace, when Eva thought it was all finally over, her best friend turned up at her doorstep, scowling, bushy-haired and spitting like a pissed alley cat. She refused to leave, no matter what excuse Eva gave her, she stayed, as she had always done, and Eva hated her for it.

_Eva loved her for it. _

Eva forgot how the argument started exactly, who began it, who shouted first, but argue they did. Loud. Violent almost. It felt good, in a horrid way, to let the rage out. And Eva felt shittier for it. Hermione had not deserved it, her anger, but she couldn't stop herself. Hermione was worried, Eva could see it in the dark hook of her brows that night, the taught creases of her mouth, and when she worried, Hermione, like some old dog with a lamb bone, wouldn't let it go.

Still, that was all Eva wanted to do. Let it go. Forget. If she spoke about it, if she said anything, if someone other than her knew, somehow, some way, it would make it real and she couldn't… She _couldn't_. What would they all think? What did she think? She was hurt, and angry, so angry, and confused and… Nothing made sense. But Hermione had looked her dead in the eye, flushed, and asked her what her mother would think about her distancing herself and Eva broke. She broke brutally.

Guilt, fury, confusion, hurt, uncertainty, it all came pouring out of her in a tidal wave of pain and Hermione, her best friend, was there to catch it all. Eva remembered she was crying by the end, bawling really, ugly sobs where breath hitched, and chest squeezed, and eyes swelled, and Hermione was there for it all. She listened, silently. When all was said, when Eva eventually calmed down, Hermione had only quietly taken her hand, apparated, and took her to Andromeda's place.

Still Hermione said nothing. She only took her to Teddy, asked for Eva to have some time with the small boy, and, with a knowing look, left to have a cup of tea with the elder Black. As always, Teddy was happy to see her, just her, Eva, not Potter, not The Girl Who Lived, _just Eva. _Most importantly, she realised she had something Teddy, her beloved Teddy, would never get.

_An opportunity._

And, fuck it all, she was a Gryffindor. They lived for gambles, and stakes and risk. It was in their blood. It was in Eva's. It's how she bloody well won the war. Merlin knew who this man was. He could be dead. It was seventeen years ago. He could want nothing to do with her. He could have moved. There were a hundred different reasons not to go, to search. Yet, there, shining in Teddy's eyes, eyes that would never see Remus or Tonks for themselves, Eva saw herself and suddenly, the choice wasn't so much of a choice anymore.

After hastily putting off her Auror training for the following year, with the poor excuse of going on some bullshit 'self-discovery' trip around the world, Eva packed up her small belongings, prepped Sirius's bike, pulled her money from Gringotts, and, with a farewell to Hermione and a promise to keep in touch, a tiny photo hidden safely in the inner pocket of her leather jacket, she was off to America.

Off to find her father.

* * *

**A.N: **So, I finally got around to watching Mayans MC and I've fallen down the ditch and can't get back out lol. I love every single character. So, imagine my surprise when I went to check out some fanfiction and saw how little there was. This is my small contribution to the growing fandom, and I hope you guys liked it!

Obviously, this is going to have some major changes to Potter canon, so if fics that mess with canon aren't your thing, this is a heads up. The main pairing will be Nestor/Fem!Harry, with slight hints of Angel/Fem!Harry along the way, and, as always when it comes to me, expect slow burn. It's going to be a long, bumpy ride.

As for triggers, if you need the warning, this fic will contain drugs, alcohol, gore, murder, age-gap between main pairing, eventual (can't stress that eventual enough) smut, swearing, organised crime and, I am sure, there will be more along the same vein as already stated, so if these turn you off, make you feel queezy, or just aren't your things, thank you for reading but I would turn back if I was you lol.

For those sticking along for the ride, thank you so much for reading. I hope you all enjoyed this little prologue, expect longer chapters as we go on, and, as always, let me know what you think!

If you have a moment and wish to see more, drop a review and I will be hopefully seeing you soon! Until then, stay beautiful! ~_AlwaysEatTheRude21_


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER ONE:**

**El Oso**

* * *

**Eva Potter's P.O.V**

Eva could see him through the swarming crowd and swaying smoke of the bar. He was right there, just across the room, sitting at a table smiling and laughing with a fist full of whiskey and cards. _Obispo Losa._ If she really wanted to, Eva could get up from her own stool perched at the bar, walk right on over and introduce herself. Maybe she would smile. Maybe she would offer her hand out in a friendly shake. Maybe there would be laughter. Sitting at the bar, nursing her own beer, Eva found her world had become a plethora of maybe's and could's. An endless rope of knotted prospects. Yet, despite all this, Eva did nothing. She was still, even thirty minutes after spotting the man, stuck on the notion that he was there at all.

He was real.

It had been nothing like a Hollywood movie, Eva finding him here, she would tell you that much. There had been no clandestine meeting. No epic search and accidental crosshairs. There had been no instant of unintentionally meeting him on the street, looking at each other through the throng of people and having, Merlin forbid, a _moment_. No. It had been slower. Less dramatic. More… Purposeful. It had been a slug. Hard.

Eva had been in America a month now, a whole fucking month, Santo Padre just a few days short of that, and after looking up any Obispo in the county directory as a last resort, she had stumbled across just three. Uno, dos, tres. Luck, it seemed, was still on her side.

The first Obispo she had visited had been an old man in a local retirement home. He was a nice guy, even if he was more than a bit grouchy and missing most of his teeth. He spoke broken English, kept haggling her for a cigar, but, well, he had a wicked sense of humour. Eva had whittled a whole day away at his chair-side, she didn't think his family visited him often, if he had any at all, and she had left with a promise to visit soon. A promise she was going to fulfill. She still owed him that cigar.

The second had been a math teacher just across town. He was less kind. Busy, prim, a bit of a stuck-up fucker if she was honest, with his turned-up nose and snooty pressed slacks. Eva had ditched as soon as she saw him. Too young, she knew, to be the man she was looking for. Still, she couldn't forget, not quite, the roll of his eye as he scanned her, having spotted the torn-up jeans, baggy white shirt and scuffed timberland boots, before he barked at her to get back to class, mumbling something or other about waist of time and a pay raise. Eva scoffed. She'd saved the world once, bloody died and resurrected like a second coming, and what had mister oxford shoes done? Marked some poor bastard down a grade for looking at him funny in roll call?

Prick.

And then came this one. _This_ Obispo. He was listed as owning a bar down at the south-side of Santo Padre. A small hole in the wall kind of dig, part bar, part junkyard, out of the way, just on the right side of town to get all the wrong kind of crowd in. Eva had rolled past a week ago, on the back of Sirius's bike, spied the door, saw that damned symbol, Mayan, not Aztec as she now knew, face that had been on that old baby hat almost stamped on the door and she just… Knew.

This was it.

By the time Eva worked up her courage, something she would never admit to having to do, she had to save some Gryffindor face after all, and got her arse out of her hotel room and down here, it seemed the bar was open on some kind of specials night, people flooding in from work, home, and if she was to be honest about how some of these women were dressed, the local fucking brothel. Subsequently, it is here Eva found herself, squirreled away in a little corner pressed tight to the bar after flashing her fake ID, ordering herself a cold one, and waiting.

He had walked in from a back-room half hour ago, shoulder to shoulder with men, all wearing the same odd jacket, same strange symbol emblazoned across the back, sat down and-… Shit. Eva had just watched. Sipped her beer. Watched some more. Went to get up. Sat back down. Drank some more beer. Watched. Rinse and repeat. Now that she was here, now that he was in front of her, now that it was all so very real and happening, Eva just… Didn't know what to do.

It was funny, in a way, if it wasn't so fucking sad or pitiful. For something she had planned, for a meeting that she had played in her head over and over again since discovering the truth, everything felt so… Unexpected. Surreal. Unpredictable. Obispo Losa looked older than the man in the photo, but he was still in there all right. In the cut of his jaw. The sweep of his nose. The arch of his brows. Time had been kind and, Eva thought, she wasn't quite sure whether she was thankful she could so clearly see the man in the photo in the man just away from her now, or whether it terrified her.

He hadn't changed much, but _she_ had.

She wasn't a baby anymore. She was grown. _Scarred_. And what if he didn't believe her? Worse, what if he did and he still wanted nothing to do with her? What if there was a reason James Potter adopted her and no one, not Remus or Sirius while they were alive, had told her the truth? What if Lily could see her now? What if, what if, what if.

And he looked happy. Sitting there. Surrounded by, what appeared to be, friends. Grinning. Laughing. Shuffling the poker cards in his hands. Taking a drink of his fifth of Jim Beam. He looked relaxed. At home. _He has a life. _Obispo Losa had a life, had friends, a job, and she's _Eva Potter. _She's bad luck draped in flesh. The black spot. The monkeys paw. If the number thirteen had a face, it would be hers.

Nearly all she had loved were dead. She's bitter. She's angry. She has a vile temper and a sailor's mouth. She smokes too much and drinks too much, she's just too much in general. She's anti-social and, even Hermione would say, on her best of days she's downright abrasive to the point of contention. She never knows when to let an argument go, and she-…

She's about to walk right into his life and she knows, right down to the fucking marrow in her bones, that she will _ruin_ it. She ruins everything. Every Merlin damned thing. Everything she touches withers and dies. She's poison of the worst kind.

Insidious.

Suddenly, she can't do that to him. Suddenly, this was all a horrible mistake. Suddenly, she was panicking. Her hands were shaking. Palms clammy. Eyes stinging. Breath wavering. The room was shrinking. The crowd was too loud. Merlin, it was all closing in and-

"Well, don't you have a face like thunder. I would offer to buy you another drink, if only you didn't look like you were about to smash that one over my head if I did."

Eva snapped to with, what felt like, the force of a cold, hard slap to the face. The voice was deep, accented, flavoured with something Eva had never heard back in dreary old England. Something she quite liked, a certain roll and spice. And it came from just over her shoulder. Before she really knew what she was doing, Eva was scowling darkly, turning around, speaking.

"Excuse me?"

And she looked up… And up… And up. The man, for he was nothing else, was an absolute bear. Tall. Broad. His black hair was slicked back, shaved at the sides and back, his dark eyes glinted something fierce in the low light of the bar, and his beard, neatly trimmed, gave him a roguish sort of charisma that was almost lethal coupled with that grin of his. Yes. Definitely a bear. Big. Friendly looking. Charming. Yet, she knew, with one good swing, just like a bear, he could pitch her right across the bloody room.

More importantly, she saw his jacket. Arms missing. Black leather. White patches sown on at the breast. _Mayans. Santo Padre. Los Asesinos De Dios. _And, though Eva could not see it with him facing her, she sure as hell knew there, on the back, would be the Mayan face. It was the same god damned jacket from the photo in her pocket. It was the same fucking jacket she saw Obispo Losa wearing tonight. It was the same bloody shitty jacket a good six… No, seven men were wearing in the bar. What was this? Uniform for the bar? A cult? Girl scouts?

"Your drink. You look seconds away from smashing it and shanking someone."

He said in that sloping voice of his as he nodded over to her hand. Eva squinted down and spotted the white knuckles straight away, virtually sickeningly pale against the mottled green of her beer bottle. Immediately, she dropped the beer back onto the table, the liquid inside sloshing up the neck with a muted splash, as she flexed her fingers, drawing her hand into her lap and out of view.

"Right, yeah… Sorry. Long day."

Was her ever so elegant reply. She thought the man would shrug, move along and forget all about the morose stranger at the bar. That was what she was used to. Eva's life was full of it. Comings and goings, people who left their mark in their own way, both good and bad, but always transient. Fleeting. Instead, he grinned at her, in that mischievous way she was beginning to believe was simply _him_, edged up to her side and leant back on the bar by the prop of his elbows, kicking back with an air of sluggish relaxation.

"Then I don't suppose you would be up for a long night?"

For the first time in a very long time, maybe in months, fuck it, a year, Eva laughed. It was bright, hot, maybe even a touch obnoxious, but it was _true. _And it felt good. More than good. To just laugh for laughing sake, over something innocent and not because it was a choice either to laugh or cry. Life or death situations, which Eva's life had been full of, seemed to wear you down over time. The tide eroding away the cliff. And even this, being here, in the same room as a man, a stranger, Obispo Losa, the guy, until recently, she had not even known existed, let alone was her father, was something hefty and dense like stone, and she was _tired_.

So very bloody tired. Laughter, as short as it was, over something so silly, gave her a glimpse, just one, of being the sixteen-year old that she was. _She liked it. _So, for a moment, that's what she did. She pretended she was just like any other sixteen-year-old in a bar with a fake ID talking to a stranger. Eva cocked a brow at the man, flashed a dimpled grin, and pretended there was nothing more to her being here apart from getting alcohol.

"Does that line honestly work?"

He chuckled and took the seat next to her, her reply apparently the only invitation he needed.

"Once or twice it's worked its magic. What can I say? I had to give it a go. It's not every day you meet la británico down in these parts."

The big bastard was the type to flirt with a broomstick, Eva thought. Harmless. Friendly banter. Not a lick of meaning really behind it. It was a default setting. _Just like Sirius. _Eva winced at the thought, snatching up her beer to chug a mouthful as a splinter of ache and loss sparked in her chest. The beer was warm, tasted like shit, but it lessened some of the emotional burn.

"What gave me away, the accent or the sheer social awkwardness? Please tell me it's not my teeth."

Now it was the mans turn to laugh, and if Eva thought he looked like a bear, he sure as shit sounded like one. Rumbling, low, Eva was surprised he could make such a noise, so much like a growl, that she had half the mind to think him some sort of shifter going incognito among the muggles. That is, if she didn't feel not a taste of magic coming off him. Nada. Zilch. In fact, Eva couldn't feel any magic anywhere. Not one person. That meant her fath-… Obispo Losa…

He was a muggle.

Don't get her wrong, Eva wasn't disturbed, upset or even angry at this revelation. She had spent her childhood fighting a war for equality. However, it was another hurdle to climb. Did he know of their kind? Had her mother told him? Shown him, perhaps? Or, as witches and wizards were prone to do, did she too go incognito? How much had been truth and how much had been based on lies and deception?

Because Eva couldn't live that way. Not anymore. Her life had been one lie after the other. Rot setting in young. Nothing good ever came with lies. And if Obispo Losa didn't know of their kind, if Eva did eventually get up and walk over, talk to him, get to know him, if he wanted her to, then she wouldn't do it with lies already primed on her lips. And that was just another reason not to get up. Why all this was a mistake. If he didn't know, she would be opening a whole can of worms he would never see coming, perhaps endangering him, and if not that, he could _hate_ her for it.

Freak. Monster. Abomination. She could hear uncle Vernon shouting in her mind. Feel the hits. The clap of fist meeting skin. The humiliation. The degradation. She could see aunt Petunia's eyes, dark, hooded, distrustful and filled with revulsion. Abruptly, Eva's scared. Terrified. What if this Obispo echoed Vernon? What if she could see Petunia in his eyes?

And that's why she's not getting up, why she's not walking over there, Eva now understands. She's petrified of facing those demons, because, in the end, if it's not just Vernon and Petunia who felt that way, saw her that way, then, maybe… Maybe it was because they were right. She was a Freak. A monster. Something _wrong_.

"So, what brings you so far from home and right into mine?"

_Home_. Perhaps this man beside her could read Eva better than she was comfortable with. Or, like she, he was good with lucky guesses. Because, despite this almost primordial fear that had suddenly grasped her in its keen talons, that's the spark of hope that has kept her right in this seat all night and not stalking out the door. It's what's brought her right over the Atlantic ocean, to this very seat, to this very moment in time. A chance at having a home.

Eva has never had a home before. She's had a cupboard she was locked in. A school she had fought in. Died in. An inn room she had hid in. A Weasley house she had sometimes invaded, welcomed but never fully one of them. Alien. An old, broken cottage she had exposed deceits in. Subsequently, before, she never realised how much she had wanted one until, right in front of her, there was a chance at having it._ A home._ And, shit, she wanted that. Badly. Achingly. For houses meant nothing. They were brick and mortar and concrete. Cold.

A home was where family was.

"Family."

Again, Eva was speaking before she meant to. Yet, she can't really get mad. Like laughter, it felt good, for once, to let it out, speak her mind, to just say something and be damned. Perhaps that was why bars and pubs were so popular. There was no judgement. No caution. Every poor soul here had their own mournful little tale, their own reason for being here and not somewhere else, and in the end, they were all here looking for something. Connection, relaxation, a chance to let go. In the dim light of night, surrounded by strangers, escape from who you are is easy.

The man smiled at her, softer now, his gaze flickering past her, over and away, and, idly, Eva knows he's looking at the table of men in similar jackets.

"Nothing more important than family. No matter how close to insanity they push us."

Eva shrugged, fiddling with her beer, thumbing the corner of the label, picking at the glue holding it to glass. Peeling. Fuck if not everything in her life wasn't currently flaking back in layers of mendacities too.

"Is it though? Is it so important? I mean… People get by without family all the time. Orphans. Kids from shit-hole homes. Fuck it, Batman seemed to do alright for himself."

He sniggered over the rim of his own bottle, the expelled air doing that odd twanging whistle that reminded Eva of pan pipes.

"Nah, Chiquita. Some may not have blood around them, but don't think for a second they don't have family. Batman had Alfred in the end. And if you happen to have blood and family, damn, you don't need nothing else. Now, stop brooding and go do what you gotta do."

Eva reeled back slightly, blinking rapidly, catching the man's eye with a look of mild, somewhat irritated, offense.

"Brooding? How the fuck do I look like I'm brooding? I _don't_ brood."

Alright, maybe that wasn't completely honest of her. Eva, perhaps, occasionally, ruminated. Everybody did. And if she did, now and then, seem to be a bit temperamental or sullen, who could really blame her? But brood? No. Hell no… Okay. Fine. Maybe she fucking brooded _occasionally_. By the 'no shit' look the man was giving her, he wasn't quite buying her quick denial either.

"No one sits alone at a bar on a Saturday night, in a room full of half-drunk chica's and tipo's, staring down the neck of their beer talking over the pros and cons of familia without brooding."

Eva sucked in a lungful of air, more denials, rejections and hot disavowals ready and waiting to be fired like bullets when, abruptly, she stopped. Halted. Froze. _He was right. _Here she sat, in a bloody bar, nursing some beer like it was her baby, in a room full of laughter, dancing, joy and jokes, on a Saturday night, acting like a kicked dog. And it was _sad_. Pathetic. Cowardly.

She was Eva bloody Potter. She'd survived not one but two killing curses. She'd waged, and won, a fucking war. She had faced werewolves and dementors, centaurs and giants, rode on the back of a fucking dragon, stared down a hoard of starving acromantulas, stolen from one of the most secured banks in Europe, killed a basilisk with a fucking sword, faced down Tom bloody Riddle, the epitome of evil, somehow fought off being a horcrux, a fucking horcrux, and she was _scared _to introduce herself?

No.

If Eva could do all that, if she could survive all that, she could do this. So what if this Obispo Losa was her father? So what if he turned her away? So what if he called her a freak or a monster? She was Eva fucking Potter, a survivor, and she'd survive this too. What was the worst that could happen? A bewildered I don't know who you are, a snide remark, a demand to get out? Hell, she had all that on a good day with the Dursley's.

She could do this.

Plucking up her beer, Eva downed what little was left before she slammed it back down on the bar in front of her. Standing up, she snatched her frayed wallet from her jeans back pocket, plucked out some crinkled bills, placed them next to the empty bottle, and proceeded to sling her own jacket back on, the smell of motor oil, smoke, and that old spicy note left over from Sirius, still enveloping the old leather.

"Hey, now. I didn't mean it like that. Don't leave on a-"

Eva cut him off.

"No… No, it's not you. I… I have someone I have to see. Thank you…?"

He grinned, nodded, a slight up and down movement, sharp, before he deftly picked up her subtle question she had left hanging between them.

"Angel."

_Angel. _Eva chuckled. Strangely, she thought it fit him perfectly. Ironically almost. Big bear with a heart of an angel and a voice cut from sin. It had a nice poetic twist to it.

"Eva. Eva Potter."

She finally added before she swiftly turned on her heal and began to push through the crowd. Before she could fully disappear into the mass of undulating bodies, Eva could hear Angel shout at her retreating back.

"I'll see you around?"

Eva replied, voice lilting, without glancing behind her. Forever unsure whether he had heard her or not over the music and chatter. She hoped Angel did. She thought it would be amusing if he didn't. A girl's got to have a little mystic every now and again.

"Maybe!"

With each step closer to the table at the far end of the bar, with each body passed, Eva's resolve grew like weeds through cracked pavement. Unconstrained. Fixed. Determined. She was doing this. Right here. Right now. Nevertheless, as she drew closer, when, through the crowd, she could see him again, Obispo Losa, eyes locked on the back of the man she had been watching for the last hour, searching for in the last month, her heart picked up speed, jack hammering in her chest, matching the thud, thud, thud of her old black army boots.

Still, Eva kept her head held high, back straight. Proud. And, if her hands fisted at her side, somewhat quivering from anxiety, fear, no one was to see them tucked into the sleeves of her jacket. No one would ever know but herself. She could live with that.

She was nearing the table when she saw him, Obispo, lean over to the man next to him, a burly beast with ink from neck to wrist, whispering something into his ear before Obispo placed his cards down. Chair squeaking over the base of the music pumping in the air. Then, Obispo was walking away from the table, over to the back rooms she had seen him leave earlier, alone, and then, right then, Eva saw her chance.

Pushing the people around her now, some turning to groan and snark at her shoulder, no one quite seeing the storming five-foot-three woman before it was too late and she was shoving past. Eva didn't care. She slipped across the corner, banking to the left, nearly jogging to catch up, and, then, three more steps, she marched out from the crowd, right in front of him.

He very nearly ploughed right into her, and there was a flash of a moment where he had to scrabble with her shoulders to keep them both upright, but they both remained standing, and his hands were still on her shoulders as he began to swear, angry, annoyed, before he looked up, right at her, brown eyes so dark they were almost black locking with jade eyes so green they were almost lurid.

"Take it easy! I could have-… Do I… Do I know you?"

His hands fell from her shoulders, flopping to his side as his head cocked back and to the left, frown heavy on his face. One day, so very long ago, he did. One day, he sat on some hospital bed, next to her exhausted mother, wrapped her in a little pink blanket and held her. One day, long ago… They had been a family.

But Eva wasn't that baby. She hadn't been for a very long time. Her innocence had been stripped years ago, before its time was due. She's grown. Changed. Yet, through it all, the scars and age and time, Eva's surprised that he could still spot something familiar in her face. In the very pit of her stomach, hope flares white and bright, because, if he could still recognize some form or shape of that baby, even if he did not know her name, then her innocence too wasn't completely gone, and if that wasn't completely gone, maybe, just maybe, they could get back to that photo and be a family again.

"I-… You're Obispo Losa? The-… I… Uh… My name's Eva… Lily Evans was my mo-"

Recognition rushed over his face like a fisher letting out a line, a small fluttery drawback and then, crack, recollection, holding him in place as mercilessly as a snake coiled around a baby bird. For a wink of an eye, Eva only watched on, her pulse skyrocketed, thrumming, sounding like a thousand galloping horse racing right through her skull.

He knew.

He's known since she said her name, Eva, and for a split second that feels like a lifetime, it was make or break. An excess of possibilities all laid bare before them, crammed into the few inches of space distancing them, and, to Eva, the air felt so tight and bulky with those potentials that she thought the very air would pop and rip right between their feet like fabric seams. Nevertheless, the horses don't smash her skull, time restored itself, and the air didn't burst. No. What happened next was something Eva never saw coming.

"Lily. Dios… Eva? Is that really you? Mi Eva?"

Because he said her name like a confession. A prayer. A plea. Not like uncle Vernon, with his revulsion and rage, not like Petunia with her cynicism and antipathy, not like Albus with his sorrow and duplicity, not like Hermione and Ron with their exasperation or apprehension. For the first time in Eva's life, it felt like someone was looking at her and seeing only _her_. Not Lily or everything they thought atrocious in the world caught and trapped in skin. Not a child they knew they would have to sacrifice, a pawn on the great chess game, when the time was right. Not a friend who, most often than not, put them all into dangerous peril, and, really, friendship could only go so far.

He just saw Eva.

She felt naked. Exposed. Words died and festered on her tongue. There was a million things she wanted to say, a million more questions, and all fail her, all gone. She's simply standing there, a puppet with her strings cut, in a crowded bar, with a man who was a stranger, a man who was her father, and she's stumbling, stuttering, stammering, and-

He swept her up, crushed her to him, and it takes longer than needed for Eva to realize he's hugging her, not attacking her, before she went slack. One hand slipped into the curls at the back of her head, cradled it, brought her in close, sealed, tight. Eva still couldn't find any words, she could hardly form a complete coherent thought, but, standing there, hugged for the first time in so long, she found sometimes, some marvelous, wondrous times, there didn't need to be any words. Then her own arms are up, around, clenching into the back of his leather kutte, fingernails scratching at stitches, and she was hugging back, just as firmly, just as sturdy, just as… There.

Eva's there. Obispo's there. Nothing else, fear, hope, worry, concern, none of it matters.

"I never thought I would see you again."

* * *

**What do you think? Good? Bad? Absolute trash? Let me know by dropping a review!**

**~AlwaysEatTheRude21**


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**El Azulejo.**

* * *

**Eva Potter's P.O.V**

The night was soft around Eva. Clear. Bright. The full moon fat and plump in the sky, a size Eva had never thought it could be. Sitting at an old picnic table, marked with a thousand scratches and dozens of lover's names, she could hear the low thump and bass of the music echoing out of the bar a few feet away. Obispo Losa was coming back over to her, out from the bar, twisting and curving around the bikes parked up out front, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.

He placed one mug on the table in front of her, before he slid around and sat opposite, keeping his own in his hands. Eva muttered a thanks as she slipped her hands around the mug, her thumb running up and down the side, stroking at the chipped enamel. She needed to keep her hands busy. She felt like if she didn't, with how very twitchy she felt, she was likely to start kicking the table leg, picking at the hem of her shirt, drumming her fingers or any other myriad of obnoxious things that nervous people do.

Perhaps coffee wasn't the best choice right now.

"You look a great deal like your grandmother when she was younger. Her name is Eva too. She was the first to hold you after you were born. Stole you right out my arms and professed your name before either I or your mother had a chance to say hola."

The flick of her finger stopped. Eva had been so caught up in the prospect of having a father, one who was not James Potter, who wasn't dead and buried and had been for most of her life, she had, ironically, overlooked what that _actually _meant. She felt a bit like an idiot. Logically, of course Obispo Losa had a mother. He had a father too. Perhaps brothers. Sisters. Cousins.

Then it hit her. Hard. He could have other children. It had been sixteen years. Eva could have brothers or sisters out there. Perhaps both. Merlin… But she didn't. Not really. Oh, they could exist, they could even be back in that bar right now, she could have walked past them, or sat next to one, and she would have never known, and that was why she didn't.

She'd never celebrated their birthdays. Never got them a gift. Never taught them how to ride a bike or cleaned a scraped knee, or threatened their school bully, or any of the happenstances Eva had always wanted to do, but never could. She'd always wanted a big family, had dreamt of nothing but in her dank little cupboard, and though she might have missed out on those little moments that bonded a family together, now… Now there was a chance.

She wasn't a sister, but she could _become _one.

"I have a grandmother? Do I have siblings?"

Eva couldn't keep the disbelief from creeping into her voice like ivy vines up an oak tree.

"No… No siblings. You're my only child. But you do have a grandmother. She lives just across town. I know she would love to see you. I can take you to visit soon and we could-… I mean, that is, if you want to meet her?"

Disappointment flashed hot on her face, warming her cheeks pink. Obispo caught it, this fleeting blunder, and, she thought, he placed it on the wrong offender. She wasn't upset at being offered to meet a grandmother… _Her_ grandmother. In fact, she would love that. Love it more than she could rightly put into words. She was, however silly it was, disappointed she didn't have any siblings stashed away.

Growing up as an only child, with only Dudley present, had been, well, _lonely. _And, as she always did, when the thought struck her that she _might _have siblings, as delayed as that thought was, she had jumped the gun and it had stuck like glue as she rambled through all the things that could be.

Full tables around a birthday cake. Teaching someone smaller than her how to cook. Reading and helping with homework. Sneaking them treats under the table, even if they hadn't finished their greens. Hallmark card shit. The kind she saw on T.V adverts, when she would sneak out her cupboard and watch through the crack in the door in the hallway, and had thought, really thought, _this_ is what a family was.

Not whatever the Dursley's were.

Nevertheless, she had a grandmother. Another Eva. She had Obispo in front of her and… Fuck, that was more, so much more, than she thought she would ever get her orphan-y little hands on. So, Eva smiled. She smiled glossily. Hotly. Full of teeth and dimple and everything she had, everything she was, and that slick of rejection shadowing Obispo's eyes washed away like dew on morning grass come noon.

"I would really like that."

That was all he needed. He pressed in closer, rested his elbows on the table between them, his own grin decorating his sharp angled face, and he was in movement. Gesturing with his hands, coffee sloshing up the side of his cup, drops splattering on the stained picnic table. Shoulders bending. Lips moving. Animated. Alive. The sight only made Eva smile wider.

"You have cousins too. Uncles. Shit, Azulejo, your godfather is going to pop a blood vessel when he sees you."

Eva's grin cracked like fine china on concrete.

"Godfather?"

Yet, before Obispo could pick up on that too, Eva pulled the grin back on tight. She pretended the word didn't make her think of long black curls and a dogs bark. No. She didn't think of the sound of paws padding across wood, or a rope of tattoo's across a too prominent collarbone. And she definitely didn't see, in her mind, the Veil, taunting her.

Sirius was gone.

And she needed to stop torturing herself. Eva couldn't flinch and break when anything, a word, a sound, a smell, reminded her of Sirius. He would never have wanted his name to hurt her so much. She knew that. Thankfully, wedged into his own trip down memory lane, Obispo missed Eva's own unexpected lurch into her sordid past.

"Si, Marcus Alvarez. Your oldest cousin. You used to babble so much around him as he bounced you on his knee. And you would have him doing it for hours, bawling your eyes out if he so much as hinted at putting you down. It would be all we would hear from you. Ali, Ali, Ali, Ali. You almost pulled his beard out once and, I swear Azulejo, I've never seen a grown man try so hard to hold back tears as he smiled down at a giggling baby, as Marcus did with you holding a fist full of his whiskers. He still has a bald patch in his beard which he's never fully grown out since. I tell you, before Lily-…"

And there, right there, was Obispo's own rapid jolt. Unforgiving. Torturous. Painful. Eva could see it all playing out on his face. Reminiscing was dangerous like that. It lulled you into a false sense of security, painting everything rosy and mellow and then, when you least expected it, something less pleasant would hit you right in the sternum like a shot of chili hidden in a sweet lollipop.

Oddly, Eva was torn. She wanted Obispo to continue, having been pulled right in too, hearing things she had never heard before, things about herself, family she never knew existed, this man, her godfather she had called Ali so many years ago, and all those misbegotten childhood dreams flooded back to her. Demanding attention. Craving more. More fuel. More stories. More. More. More. A selfish little creature it was. Yet, as it had done with Obispo, her mother's name added a chill. Frozen. Corked. Before Lily… Before Lily what?

What had happened?

Why was she now a Potter and not a Losa? Why had she grown up in England, not here? Why had Obispo never been there? When she had needed someone, a father, so fucking much? Why had she been left alone? To the fucking Dursley's? To starvation and neglect, abuse and death and-…

It was no use trying to picture what could have been, no matter how pretty and perfect Eva made it look in her head. Imagination was a bitch. It always painted in sunshine even if it would have rained. What was done was done. She was here. He was here. And somewhere, between them, just lurking underneath the surface, was the truth. They both simply needed to be brave enough to reach under and grab it.

"Before Lily took you."

His voice was low, soft, like a dim lamppost trying bravely to flicker on, as, finally, he finished the thought. Eva blinked.

"Took me?"

Obispo sucked in a dragging breath, held it in, steeled himself, Eva knew, because this was it. This was the conversation no one really _wanted _to have, but both _needed _it to. Placing his mug down on the table, he stared down into his black coffee, and, through its oil like reflection, Eva could see one lone eye staring back from the black abyss.

"How much has your mother told you?"

Eva stalled.

"Mum… Mum told me nothing. She…"

And completely stopped. She tried to gulp down the lump in her throat, the one threatening to choke her, but it was stubborn. Unrelenting. Unmovable. Funny, too, because 'un' was really the only sound she was capable of making right then. She opened her mouth, once, twice, three times, it wouldn't come out. Her mother's death, entombed in her throat, impenetrable.

She knew it was wrong, the way her hand delved into the pocket of her leather jacket, fingers plucking out the old photo that had caused all this, knowing full well she was going to use it to change topics, divert, stop herself from choking up, locking down, but it was the only thing she _could _do. She swore, however, that she would tell him, by the end of the night, come what may. She swore it on Sirius's memory. Obispo deserved that much.

Just not yet.

Placing the photo on the table between them, she slid it over to him, hands shooting back to her mug of coffee as soon as it was close enough. Obispo locked onto it straight away, picked it up, ran his calloused thumb over the face as a small, so fucking small, smile hinted at the corner of his lips. A shadow of an upturn.

"I found that a month ago. It was in a box in mum's closet. There was a birth certificate, some more photos, medals, an adoption certificate-"

He cut her off tersely.

"Adoption certificate?"

Obispo seemed confused, and, slowly, Eva realised he might not have known. How could he? If Lily did take her, why the hell would she have had James adopt her _before_ she left? Why have James adopt her at all? Why leave? Why take her? Why?

"James Potter. He married my mum when I was about nine months old. He adopted me too."

Anger, red, beastly, contorted Obispo's face into something not quite human. Eva had to stop her hand going for her wand, which was safely strapped to her forearm, as he slammed his fist on the table, cursing.

"Fucking Jimmy _adopted_ you? Married _my _wife? That conniving little puta! What-…"

Then he saw her bent shoulders, the leant back posture, the alert, watchful eyes of Eva and Obispo managed to drag himself back to himself. Hunching over his mug of coffee, Eva watched as he ran a tired hand down his face, his palm tugging at the whiskers of his beard. She didn't blame him. Not for the anger. If she had found out her child had been adopted behind her back, by someone she had thought friend, for Eva could tell that from the photos she had seen in the box, she too would be furious.

But Obispo stopped himself, saw her guarded expression and he had… He had controlled himself. For her sake. And no one had ever done that for her before. Normally, with the Dursley's, with the war, her face had only made it worse, worry or fear adorning it be damned. It meant… Well, it meant a whole lot that he even gave a passing thought to her sense of ease.

"I'm sorry, Azulejo. I'm not… I'm not angry at you. Is he here? Did he tell you?"

Eva slowly shook her head.

"No. He told me nothing. He's dead."

Obispo frowned at her.

"Did Lupin or Black bring you here? Tell you the truth?"

Eva winced, picked up her mug to blow at her coffee before taking a long, longer than needed, sip.

"No… No. They're dead as well."

If Eva thought Obispo looked confused before, she was sorely proven wrong.

"Then how did-…"

And, like sun breaking on a cloudy day, the fog parted and comprehension lit the path as he glanced down to the little photo he still held in his hand.

"You found the box. You… You didn't know I… Father… Jimmy… James…"

What was she meant to say to that? I'm sorry I didn't know you existed until a month ago? I'm sorry I could have gone my whole life without ever knowing? I'm sorry I'm here right now, dredging all this up? For some inexplicable reason, she had the urge to apologize. For something. Anything. Perhaps, because everything was somehow, someway her fault. And she felt guilty. For this. For that. For everything. That little cynical voice in her head, the one that filled her full of doubts and self-hate and guilt, was screaming at her, telling her this, somehow, was her fault too.

Eva didn't know how to do this.

All she had was the truth, and that was fucking ugly. Grotesque. Gnarled. Damp twisted tree roots that skulked in the dark, ready to trip and wrap and pull. Nevertheless, as ugly as it was, as much as Eva wished it was all different, simple, _easy, _the truth was all she had.

"No. I didn't know I was adopted until I found the box."

Obispo deflated. Sunk down. Folded. He reminded Eva of those card pyramids, a sudden gust of wind and it all came toppling down, layer by layer.

"Fuck, Azulejo. It was never supposed to be like this."

Nothing ever was. If Eva had her way, she would have never been in that cupboard. She would have never been with the Dursley's. She would have never gone to Hogwarts and restarted a vicious, bloody, half a century long war. She would have never lost Sirius. Remus. So many. She would have never died.

But she had.

Eva couldn't change that. Just as she couldn't change this. For some reason, sixteen years ago, Lily had left with her, James Potter had adopted her, and everything, all the loss and pain, had fell into place just as surely as the earth spins around the sun. Obispo was left here, out of the way, none the wiser, and they, him and her, when all was said and done, were left alone to try and fill in the gaps, mend the shattered picture. This is what they had, as little was it was, and some fucking way, they had to make that work for them.

"Then why is it?"

The only way to do that was to dig down, as much as it hurt, and try and collected the shards of truth buried in the muck of the lies.

"I don't know, Azulejo. Me and your mother, when we got married, when we found out we were having you, we were… We were happy. More than happy. We had a little home on a nice street. Friends and family. Then one day…"

Obispo puttered off, looking out into the distance, lost once more.

"One day?"

Eva pushed gently. Half for his sake, and half because, really, she was afraid of the answer. Obispo snapped back, shuffling in his seat before he took a gulp of his cooling coffee.

"One day she changed. She had just had you. Everything was going good. Real good, Azulejo. And then she got a letter from home and she… She changed. I can't describe it any other way. It was like a damned switch went off in her head. After that… Some days I didn't even know who that woman was. My own wife was a stranger."

_A letter from home. _Dread crept in. A hundred angry snakes hissing in the bowels of her stomach. From all the stories she had heard about her mother over the years, one thing had stayed constant. How unabashedly _her_ she was. A tad like Hermione, now that Eva thought about it. No matter what other's said, how derogatory they could be, the prejudice and ignorance they had faced, they had always been themselves and nothing else. To the point of refusing to grow, in some cases. A bit closed minded, though Eva would never tell Hermione that.

Not unless she wanted a face full of angry canaries.

So, to hear that her mother _changed, _drastically at that, over a letter from home of all things, Eva knew, was the turning point. The hinge that had flipped and turned what could have been into this mess. Could it have been cursed? Some darker spells did change a persons personality. Who would do it? Why? If Lily, James, Sirius and Remus were here, in America, they were out of the battlefield that was England. Off the front-line. They were all powerful witches and wizards in their own right. The Deatheaters wouldn't have wanted them active on home ground. Cursing them to run back seemed counterproductive. They could have finished off the war in England and then come for them, cleaned up all the loose ends for any opposition. So why would-

Albus.

Albus would want his top men back. Albus would need the extra force. Albus would need his child sacrifice somewhere in arms reach, not halfway across the world. Albus had a history of messing with peoples lives. Their futures. Another pawn to move. Another body to fill the trenches. Another bloody kamikaze runner. Eva knew that personally.

"Changed how?"

But to curse them? Her mother? As tricky as Albus was, as far as he was willing to go for the 'greater good', Eva couldn't see him stooping to such lows. Coercion? Sure. Albus could talk a cat into barking like a dog if he wanted. He could talk an abused child into walking to their death for others who wouldn't spit or piss on her if she was on fire. Albus had liked talking. Too much, Eva now knew, older and wiser to the ways of power struggles. But dark curses? Not so much.

"She got paranoid. Real bad. She refused to leave the house, especially with you. She wouldn't talk to me. She hardly let _me_ touch you, your own father, let alone anyone else. She banned your godfather, Marcus, from coming around. She did it with all our friends. Jimmy, Lupin and Black too. She burnt the letter and I never got to read it but, after, she… She wasn't the same person. It was like she was always looking over her shoulder."

Obispo shook his head.

"Fuck. One day I got a tattoo done. On my forearm. Lily spotted it when I got home and… She lost it. It was bandaged to stop infection, and she saw the covering, and she… She stormed right up and ripped it off before I could move. She saw it, Madre Maria knows what she was looking for, it was just your birthdate, and she broke down crying, saying she was sorry. She locked herself in her room for hours afterwards, refusing to open the door no matter how much I begged."

Eva sighed, closing her eyes as she tried, so hard, to keep herself together. It was all making a sick sort of sense now. That letter… What would cause her mother to change? The one thing that would cause change in all mothers. _A threat to her child. _That fucking letter was likely a warning of the prophecy. The reaction to Obispo's tattoo, the paranoia, the refusal to leave the house, with Eva most importantly, the caution Lily took with having people around her, even friends, it was all her mother trying to protect her.

Lily likely thought, with Eva's birthday, that Eva was a target. It had, after all, been a two-horse race back then. A toss up between her and Neville. A flip of a coin. Nevertheless, Neville was a _pureblood_. Eva, in truth, was… Well, her mother was a muggleborn and her father a muggle. Lowest of the low. Tom's eyes, already filled with prejudice and hate, would have flown straight to Eva for the simple matter of her blood. To a Merlin damned racist, megalomaniac sycophant like Tom, it was always going to be the 'dirty' that would be a danger.

And who would have sent that horrid letter? Who would know Tom would gun for her and not Neville if Tom found out about her? Who would want Lily, James, Sirius and Remus back? Who would know, if Lily knew about the prophecy, that she would come rushing home for help to protect her child? Who would act as if they were looking out for her mother and small child, if only to have them close and usable? Who was good at talking and convincing?

Albus fucking Dumbledore.

And it wouldn't have taken much, Eva knew. He likely warned Lily of the prophecy, told her mother Eva was a target, some 'grandfatherly' advice attached at the end to keep an eye out for anything odd, for Eva's safety of course, a tactic to instill fear and paranoia that they, Deatheaters, were indeed coming without ever saying so, an offer for help should Lily need it, and it had all played out exactly as Albus had wanted it to. He got his men back on home soil, he already had Neville close, her too now should Tom have chosen her, and the rest was history.

The funny thing, the real kicker, was Tom Riddle probably didn't know Eva existed until Lily came back to England with a child. Why would he? Her mother had been living as a muggle in America, and Tom's attention had never drifted from the pebbled shores of England. Eva, in short, if her mother never read that letter, never went running back, would have been safe. Tom's attention would have fell on Neville and stayed.

Albus, in trying to help the Longbottom's, in trying to spread the chances of Neville not being attacked, had fucking _obliterated _Eva's family. Sacrificed them. Yes, perhaps he didn't know both would be attacked. Perhaps he thought he could help them both by endangering another. Perhaps he really did have good intentions. Yet, good intentions paved the way to hell. And, right then, Eva had never _hated_ Albus as much as she did, sitting in the ruins of what his 'greater good' morality had wrought.

Lily had tried to stick it out. Make it work here. But it all got to much. The fear. The constant guard. So, she took Albus's offer. She ran. Lily had been trying to protect her. Leaving, having a pureblood, James Potter, adopt her would have put her on the same level as Neville, evening the odds that Tom wouldn't choose her, and it had all been to protect Eva. To protect the man in front of her.

The man who knew nothing of magic if he did not know of the prophecy, or why her mother became paranoid, why she would think she _had_ to run. The man who did not know his wife had been a witch. The man who, still, to this day, did not know what had happened to cause his family to fall apart.

"We had a row one night. A vicious thing. I said some shit I didn't mean. I told her… I said if she wanted to leave, she knew where the door was. I stormed out of the house. I needed to cool down. By the time I got back in the morning, she was gone. You were gone. I rang Jimmy-… James, Black, Lupin. All their phones had been disconnected. I visited their apartment. Empty. Everything was packed and gone. She left me a note. Just four words. _Don't look for us_. Fuck… I should have taken you with me that night. I shouldn't have left the house. I shouldn't have-…"

Eva opened her eyes, but she couldn't bring herself to look at Obispo. She had been right. In a way, this, all this, was her fucking fault.

"I tried looking for you, Azulejo. I tried my fucking hardest. But international abduction laws are hard to enforce and Lily… She disappeared in the wind. I went to law firms, charities, the fucking FBI. No one had a single clue where you or Lily were. I tried going to London once. I visited her home. The address she had told me she lived in. No one had ever heard of a Lily. You were… You were just… Gone. I didn't even get to kiss you goodnight…"

There was so much blame there, hidden between the rolls of vowels and the snaps of consonants. Eva's stomach flipped. Spoiled. She couldn't bear to hear it, aimed inside, at himself when, really, it should be aimed at her.

It was all her fault.

"She did it to protect you."

Eva was focused over his shoulder, staring off into the dark, watching the metal chrome of a bike glint underneath the moon, still unable to meet his eye, that she couldn't see his face. She could, oddly, hear the frown in his voice.

"Protect me? How is taking my child protecting me?"

Eva's voice softened, ghosting along in the glimmer of that fat pale moon.

"Lily… Mum… Mum died a long time ago."

At her confession, there was silence. Silence and starlight. That voice, mocking, biting, cold, was speaking up again, telling her not to carry on. Bury it. Hide it. _If he knows, he'll hate you. Blame you. Kick you to the curb where you belong. _It sounded like aunt Petunia. All nasally and odious. Eventually, Obispo shattered the silence with a cracked, almost grunted word.

"How?"

Eva licked her lips and tasted grief.

"She was murdered."

From her peripheral vision, she could see Obispo open his mouth, go to talk, but Eva beat him to it. If she didn't get it out now, she never would.

"Mum, James, Sirius, Remus… They were all in some deep shit. Back home, in England, everything was going wrong. So very fucking wrong. It got dark. Real dark."

Eva tried to find the right words all over again, at least ones a muggle would understand, without the magic and surrealism that tinted her life into some fucking Salvador Dali painting.

"The government was fighting a terrorist organisation. They, this organisation, called themselves Deatheaters."

The word cached in her mouth like flies in honey, tasting like rancid meat, wiggling with maggots. Eva hardened herself. Cut herself off. Went… Inside. It was easier that way, she found. To pretend she was talking about someone else, traumas and wounds inflicted on someone else, distanced. Away.

"They believed in purity. They thought themselves special. Devine. Superior. You know, the usual with a supremacist group. They were categorical _foul_. They were the type of people to break into a families home, rape the wife in front of the husband, kill a child in their parents arms, and then leave them all just barely alive enough to feel the lick of flames on their skin as they burnt their house down with them locked inside. They liked hearing people scream."

So many families gone like that. Too many. And no one had really cared in the wizarding world when it had only been muggle attacks. No one had given a flying fuck. It had been swept under the rug. Forgotten. That had only changed when the Deatheaters began attacking wizarding families, ones who opposed Tom. Muggles? Sure, rape, torture, maim and murder until your hearts content. Attack an unarmed wizard? Oh, no. You're evil.

Hypocrites.

"Their leader was a man called Tom Riddle. He worked in the government. He had a… Family name. Old blood and older money. The one percent kinda man. People flocked to him. He was charismatic. Intelligent. Handsome… And the vilest most inhumane person I have ever known."

There was not enough words in any language to describe the monster that was Tom Riddle. Eva didn't want there to be. Even the name Tom Riddle seemed to be a creature of its own, infecting anyone who heard it.

"He believed he could… Become immortal. He went to a… Fortune teller one day. He thought she would tell him that he would succeed. Instead… He didn't like what he heard. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark them as his equal, but they will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies."

"You were born in July…"

Eva nodded.

"Tom went on the warpath. Mum… That letter she got, it must have been news of the pro-… The fortune telling. Tom already knew of mum because she had gone to the same school he had, though he was older. Mum and James, Sirius and Remus… They had joined his political rival young. Too young to make any sort of decision like that. They already had targets on their back for opposing him. This… This was just icing on the cake. It didn't matter if it was real or not, you see, because Tom _believed_ it was real."

Eva gave a hollow laugh. It sounded like a death knell.

"And Tom hated my mother. He hated anyone like her. He would have hated _you_. He thought people like her, like me, like you, were less. Muddy. Unclean. When mum got that letter, she must have thought Tom would come."

Obispo's voice was raspy.

"And he did."

"Yeah. Mum ran. She had James adopt me because, I think, he came from an old English family too. She likely thought it would protect me. Protect you."

But it hadn't. it had sealed all their fates.

"It didn't protect you, though, did it?"

Finally, on their own accord, her eyes drifted back to Obispo, finding the dark brown wet with unshed tears.

"I was a year old when he finally found mum. Some people in the government put her in protective custody. It's probably why you couldn't find us. He broke into her home. He killed… James was the first gone. He killed my mum… She was standing over my crib. He… He fired at me but mum jumped in the way. He tried to kill me too, after mum-… but something went wrong."

In a rap of three, Eva tapped at the scar on her forehead.

"The shot rebounded off me and hit him instead. It did some damage. He was… Really weak for a long time. He had to go underground."

Obispo's eyes roamed over her face, from scar to chin, dropping to her hands, her knuckles, to the little chicken scratch scars white and bright on her tanned skin. _I must not tell lies. _Immediately, she pulled her hand underneath the table, tugging at the sleeves of her leather jacket over her hands, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Obispo had saw them. A tear fell.

"He came back again, didn't he?"

She had a choice now, Eva knew. Tell him yes, but say Tom was gone now and leave it at that. Or… Or for once in her short but sorry life, everything could be laid out on the table between them, no deceit, no trickery, no coercion with half-truths, and she could give Obispo what was never given to her. The full picture. But in so… She could be damning herself.

The choice was easier than she thought it would be.

"He did. But he's gone now. Dead. You should know… It was me."

"Eva…"

Obispo sounded as if he was going to try and rebuff her, push back, but Eva couldn't have that. Not now. He needed to know exactly what and who was sitting in front of him. What he would be letting into his life should he not boot her away. Eva straightened out, squared her shoulders and looked Obispo dead in the eye.

"I killed him. I killed Tom Riddle."

And then it all came tumbling out as if, deep inside, a dam had broken, flooding her with thoughts and feeling she was used to telling herself not to think about, let alone speak.

"He resurfaced when I was eleven… And he just kept coming. He wouldn't stop. Year after year after year, he would attack and retreat, attack and retreat and… No one believed me. Not in the beginning. They thought I was insane. Little cracked Potter. That's what they called me. Cracked Potter. I _begged _for them to believe me. _Pleaded. _To do something. Anything… No one did. And when they did finally see for themselves… It was too late. Tom was in. His people were in. He was _everywhere._"

Eva couldn't stop.

"He killed my mother. He killed my da-… James. He was the reason Remus and Sirius were murdered. He… Remus had a wife… A wife and a new-born child and… Only Teddy survived and I… He tortured my friends… He took everything from me… He… He voi… He violated me in ways I can never speak… I…"

Eva never spoke about… About… _That. _Being a… Horcrux. Not to anybody. It felt shameful. Dirty. To have him, Tom… Inside her. Her mind. _Her soul._ Invading. Taking. Whispering things in her ear. Sending her dreams of killing muggles, innocents, night after night after night until she couldn't sleep, too afraid of what she would see, what atrocities would unfold before her, and she, helpless, trapped, unable to do anything, to stop it and-

And he wouldn't stop. He'd taunt her with her own thoughts. Things meant to be private. He'd take them and warp them and throw them right back at her as demons. He'd sully her emotions, tinge everything in shades of anger until she had no joy left, no happiness, until… Until she was _becoming_ him. That was the worse.

He had tried to strip her of herself. In her own body, her own mind, her own soul… Nothing had been hers. It had all been _his. _His weapons, his tools, his toys. Nothing had been safe… Eva had never felt safe. He had stained her. A stain, a soul deep stain, that Eva could never wash off, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

"I killed Tom seven months ago. He attacked my school. Cornered me. Shot me. I was… I was dead for a whole forty-two minutes the heal-… Doctors said. _Dead_. But I got back up. Against the odds I came back and I made damn sure he wouldn't be able to do the same. I made sure he wouldn't be able to hurt anyone else. I made sure he couldn't take anything else from me."

Something wet dipped into the crease of her lips. Salty. She was crying.

"I killed Tom Riddle. And I'm not sorry for it. I would do it again. I stood over his cold, lifeless body and I didn't feel a lick of remorse. That's who I am, you see. I… if your going to let me… If this is going to continue… You should know that."

Obispo's voice cracked brokenly.

"The police?"

Eva swiped at her cheeks, scrubbing away the tears, the weakness. Merlin, why was she crying? It was done with. Finished. Tom didn't have any power over her anymore. He never would again.

"You don't have to worry about hiding me. I'm not on the run. They gave me a bloody medal for it. Last I heard, they were even going to put a statue up in my honour."

Eva practically spat out the word honour. What honour for her was there? She had… She had killed someone. Tom Riddle, yes, more monster than man, but he was _still a_ man. A human. And that was blood on her hands. Sixteen and she had taken someone's life. That was just another thing she would never be able to scrub away.

"The poor little orphan girl who stood up against the devil. A nice fairy-tale, isn't it? The things we tell ourselves to sleep at night… I'm sorry. I… I understand if you don't want me… I… I just thought… You deserve to know the truth. I didn't want to lie… I… I'll go. I'm sorry."

Eva may have been outside, free, but all of a sudden, she desperately needed air. Space. She pushed away from the table, listing off to the side, leaving. It's the silence. Obispo's silence. She couldn't take it. She knows what it means. _You're fault. You're fault. Monster. Freak. Just like Tom. You ruin everything you touch. Tainted. Infected. Who could want you? Sullied. You're fault._

Eva got five steps away, just five, before warm fingers landed on her shoulder, tugging, and she's being pulled around, swung. Then there were arms, around, hauling, and her face brushed leather that smelled of cigar smoke and whiskey, a hand in the back of her hair, drawing her in, holding her close, shaking slightly. Hugging. Tight.

"Lo siento, azulejo. I'm so fucking sorry. I should have been there. But I'm here now. I'm here now and I'm not ever going away. You hear me? Never."

The desolation Eva felt was all consuming. She felt broken, shattered, robbed of everything she could use to hold herself together. She felt like a man lost at sea, helpless and stranded, looking desperately for that hint of land on the horizon to anchor herself before she drowned.

"I was scared… So scared… No one believed me… No one helped…I was so fucking scared…"

It's the first time Eva had ever admitted it. Her fear. So much fear. Both internally and externally. Before, in the war, as the bodies were dropping, she couldn't afford to even hint that she might have been afraid. If the Girl-Who-Lived admitted she didn't know what the hell she was doing, that she was barely running on fumes of fear, that all she was was some scared little girl who was only trying to survive, everything would have fallen apart. Too many eyes had strayed to her to win, to fight, to be what they couldn't. Too many had leant on her, expected her to bare the weight of their worries and fears, and absolve them of their sins. Too many had thought she would know what to do, how to save everyone.

She had been so bloody scared.

After the war, it had become second nature. Don't show. Never show. The Weasley's, with the death of George, needed her there to be strong for them in their time of need and grief. They needed to see her face to give reason to George's death, to make it worth something, anything, to deal with the insurmountable loss of a child. The ministry paraded her around like a prized pig, pushing the notion that all was good in the world now, the light had won, here was their saviour, who, of course, the ministry had always backed and, no, of course they had not hunted her mercilessly just a few months ago under Tom's orders. Everyone else expected her to fall into line, to become an Auror, to carry on the good fight for them all, to keep the little wizards and witches safe in their homes, to sacrifice more, fight more, die a little bit more. For them. Always _for_ them. Take and take and take.

And all she had been left with was fear.

Fear she would have to keep on fighting. Fear that, even now, with Tom gone, her life wasn't her own. It belonged to the people. To the fucking 'greater good'. Fear that one day, another man would come, another Tom and she would, again, have to walk alone, terrified and broken, and die that way all over again. Fear that, in the end, this was all she had, this fear, and she would never know what it would be like to be…

"I know, azulejo. I know. You're safe now. I've got you. Padre's got you. You're safe."

Safe. Safe from that cupboard that still haunted her dreams. Safe from uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia. Safe from too heavy expectations. Safe from murder. Safe from being used, abused, demonized and sainted. Safe from being hunted and paraded, prized and loathed. Just safe. That's all she wanted. To feel safe. Just once.

And here, with this stranger who wasn't a stranger, her father, wrapped in the cloying smells of expensive whiskey and cigar smoke, clinging onto him like he was a lifeline, Eva, for the first time in her life, thought she really was safe.

This is what coming home felt like.

* * *

**Thoughts?**

**Azulejo: **Meaning bluebird, or a glazed tile primarily used in traditional Spanish and Portuguese buildings.

**A.N: **So, I think next chapter is going to be less heavy in topic, less depressing lol, and… Not lighter, per se, but more positive. I obviously don't want to give too much away, but Nestor is coming soon my beautiful readers, so hold on tight!

I also wanted to let you guys know, in case you were interested, that I have a little Tumblr blog up and running. On it I'm taking requests, Mayans MC included, and there isn't much content up yet, but I will be posting on it regularly between updating my main fics here to keep inspiration going and to just challenge myself. It will primarily be original character content, headcanons, prompts, imagines, that sort of stuff, and on the smaller scale. I have an ask box open and waiting, if you feel like you want to hand over a prompt or anything that tickles your fancy. If you want to pop over and check it out, leave a little request, I have the link on my profile page here, just remove the spaces and, if you want to just search it, my name on there is AlwaysEatTheRude21fanfic.

Well, that is it for today folks! I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited and reviewed! Until next time, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21


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